


we are the pretty, petty thieves.

by cereal



Category: Misfits
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 01:37:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Practice makes perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we are the pretty, petty thieves.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alyse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyse/gifts).



The first week Simon has his power, he spends a lot of time in front of the mirror. No one's sure if they'll ever be able to control these things, so he's not practicing that.

He's practicing pulling faces.

In the locker room, as he changed, his face had looked so severe, so powerful. Simon's never felt that strong before.

(He was also in a lot of pain, but good things come from pain. Morrissey comes from pain.)

He stares in the mirror and The Psychedelic Furs are ringing out soft and tinny from his music player, singing about the ghost in you, him, me, and he's growling, snarling, looking like a fucking nutter.

The closest he gets is the face he has on Christmas every year when his grandmother sends him pastel jumpers and noxious aftershave.

It's disgusted and pained, but it's not terrifying.

He punches himself under the chin, like Edward Norton in Fight Club, and there, in the split second between the pain of the blow, and the hot rush of blood from biting into his tongue, is the face.

The next day he laces his boots extra tight, so there's always a throb in his feet. He only gets to use the look once before Nathan asks if he's sore because last night's young lad gave chase.

&&.

Even if he couldn't nail down the face, Simon's used to practicing things he hopes to be able to use.

In school, he'd spend whole lessons rehearsing what cheeky thing he'd say if anyone asked him about the maths assignment. They'd be turning them in the next day and he'd just blurt it out and everyone would laugh at him. Not _with_ him, _at_ him.

He learned to like the taste of a good pint (or a shit pint) at 9, sneaking in to the kitchen after his parents had gone to bed. It didn't matter that his father had torn the house apart the next day, convinced his mum had the last of the lager just to spite him -- if anyone offered Simon some, he could drink it without looking like such a wanker.

It finally comes together on the bench outside the center. Kelly's having a smoke and she, out of nowhere, offers him one. Over a particularly ambitious holiday, Simon had not only taught himself to smoke -- but to blow smoke rings.

He watches Kelly look out over the water and thinks about asking her if she can do it. When he opens mouth to say something, no sound comes out.

Instead, he puffs out a few rings, watches them swirl past Kelly and disappear.

"How'd you do that?"

Simon jerks back, startled that she'd actually noticed.

It takes 15 minutes and two more fags each, but he'd taught her.

He has to eat a whole box of cough sweets that night, but it's worth it.

&&.

Other things Simon has practiced:

\- Chopsticks.  
\- Skateboarding.  
\- Applying eyeliner.  
\- Applying condoms.  
\- Responding to text messages in an amount of time that is not needy, but not rude.

&&.

He's in bed, picturing a movie scored entirely by Siouxsie & The Banshees, when he gets the message. Cities in Dust slides into the electronic beep of his mobile and he flings a hand toward his table to retrieve it.

It's from Nathan.

"barry come buy us a pint we neeeeeed you barry"

As invitations to the pub go, it's not what Simon envisioned when he thought about having proper friends he could go drinking with, but it'll do.

He pulls on his jacket and heads out.

Nathan's standing on a stool when Simon walks in. His hair is just brushing the low ceiling and when spots Simon, he jumps.

The sound his head makes colliding with the roof is audible over the noise of -- what the fuck is this? McFly maybe?

On the long fall from the stool to the ground, Nathan is yelling in exaggerated slow motion, "I'm immortal!"

While that's true, what's more apt in the situation is: Nathan's shitfaced.

"I don't think you need another pint, Nathan."

"Aw, but Barry, we're celebrating!"

Alisha slides on to the stool next to Simon and Nathan.

"What exactly are we celebrating?" Simon says, trying to figure out if he missed something, or if Nathan's taking the piss.

"It's been a fortnight since we killed anyone!" Nathan raises his arms in the air triumphantly.

"Say it a little louder, you twat," Alisha elbows him in the side.

"Lucky for you, I like it rough," Nathan leers.

Curtis pushes through the door of the pub and heads right for Nathan, "Tell me you're not trying to have a go at my girlfriend."

"Hey, she started with me, mate. How does that work exactly? You pull your own hair while you're having a wank?"

Curtis gives Nathan a shove and he makes a big show of falling to the floor as Kelly walks in. She gives him a little kick.

"What was that for?"

"Looked like you needed it."

Simon buys a round -- and the next one.

The next morning he's making a sandwich and the receipt falls out of his pocket. Alisha had drawn a happy face next to her drink, some fruity vodka thing. Under the face, she'd written "Cheers!" in loopy, girl cursive.

Nathan had scribbled a cock the length of the paper.

Simon sticks it to his refrigerator.

&&.

They're all out on the rooftop when he starts to think maybe he's holding them back.

He's too much of a loner, too much of a square block to ever fit into the round pegs of a group of people who are eventually going to run out of options and _have_ to start doing good.

Simon will be Ian Curtis, and he'll finally kill himself and Nathan will have them form New Order. Soon they'll be on American radio, with girls in dark clothes and dark eyeliner throwing themselves at them. And Simon will be dead.

It's a really tenuous metaphor and that night when he gets home, he puts on the original recording of Ceremony, the Joy Division one. He decides it's a thousand times better than the New Order version. When his player shuffles over to Bizarre Love Triangle, he maybe thinks about Kelly and Nathan. Or Alisha and Curtis.

He thinks of himself as a part of something, is what matters.

&&.

There are things Simon couldn't practice, but that he played in his head over and over again.

Helping an old lady across the street.

Having tea with Johnny Marr.

A girl is cold and he offers her his jacket.

They're leaving one evening, after community service, and Alisha's wearing a strappy little top. Curtis is off to meet Nikki and Nathan is having a go round with Kelly about whether drinking your booze through a straw gets you pissed faster.

"It's the suction, it activities all the little booze-y chemicals. Before you know you wake up in a skip with soiled pants."

"That's not the straw, Nathan. That's you having a drinking problem," Kelly's got her hands on her hips.

Simon's thinking about getting involved, with science and facts, when he sees Alisha shiver against the wind.

Before he has time to think about it, he shrugs out of his jacket and hands it to her. He's sure his face says something like, "I have no idea why I'm doing this, please don't be offended," but he makes a point to set his shoulders straight.

Things are mostly different now, since Alisha saved him, maybe even a bit before. Sometimes she looks at him like she knows him.

She takes the jacket with a bright smile and he -- he could swear she sniffs at it as she puts it on.

He walks her to her flat under the pretense of getting his jacket back once they're there. When they get to the door, she leans up and kisses him on the cheek.

He dreams that night that Alisha is Leia and he's Han Solo.

Nathan is Chewbacca.

&&.

It's such an odd thing, knowing there's another you out there. Or that there was.

One who's been with your girlfriend and one who can jump about buildings and built an amazing flat and saves people's lives and is just generally all the things Simon never thought he'd be capable of.

It's also an odd thing to be able to turn invisible.

Simon's stopped questioning everything. He thinks he's finally over all the rehearsing and the practicing and living life waiting for something to happen. Maybe he's over nights in his room listening to Depeche Mode while Matt throws a party next door.

When Alisha teaches him where to put his hands and how to move her hips and what it means when she makes that sound, Simon figures out something else:

If you practice right, it's just as important as the game.

(And when her tongue slides against his, when his hands fist in her hair, when she bites at his neck and arches into him, he learns he's _won_.)

&&.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Morrissey's First of the Gang to Die. Even with all the Simon stuff this series, I still don't feel like we've been given a full handle on him, so I hope this comes in at least somewhere close to something you'd like! Thank you for pinch-hitting!


End file.
